1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a recording material having imaging surfaces to be smoothed at both sides, a smoothing system that smooths the imaging surfaces, and an image-forming system that forms toner images on the imaging surfaces and smooths the imaging surfaces.
2. Description of the Related Art
Electrophotographic image-forming apparatuses have widely been known, and many types of such image-forming apparatuses have been commercialized, including full color type as well as monochrome type. Demand for high quality images is rising as the image-forming apparatuses are increasingly used in a variety of fields.
It is, for example, required that glossiness, which is one of factors to enhance the image quality, be increased. The glossiness is affected by, for example, the smoothness of output images.
Responding to such a demand, Japanese Patent Laid-Open Nos. 04-216580 and 04-362679 each have disclosed an apparatus that forms glossy images by embedding a toner image to a recording material having a thermoplastic transparent resin layer (hereinafter referred to as resin medium). The resin layer of the resin medium has a glass transition temperature of 85° C. or less.
In the above described apparatus, the toner image formed on the transparent resin layer is fixed by a fixing device. The toner image is then heated to melt together with the resin layer by a glossy belt of a smoothing unit. Then, the resin medium is cooled by a cooling device while it is conveyed with close contact with the belt, and is thus separated from the belt. Consequently, the entire surface of the resin medium is smoothed according to the glossy surface of the belt. The cooling of the resin medium before being separated from the belt can reduce the toner or resin layer offset to the fixing roller and prevent the surface of the resin medium from being roughened.
There is another demand for forming glossy images on both surfaces of a resin medium. More specifically, a double-sided resin medium having the transparent resin layer at both sides is used.
Unfortunately, the double-sided resin medium having the transparent resin layer at both sides causes the following problem.
Specifically, the previously smoothed resin layer (imaging surface) is roughened while the resin layer at the other side is smoothed. Thus, the glossiness of the previously smoothed imaging surface is seriously degraded. It is thus difficult to produce high-quality glossy images on both surfaces of a double-sided resin medium.